Gauging the Knowledge Development of Innovations in Mega-infrastructure Projects

As the construction industry’s flagships, mega-infrastructure projects are often involved in advanced practices. In these practices, innovative efforts are critical to the sustainability of mega-infrastructure projects. In the past decade, much research has been conducted on innovations in mega-infrastructure projects. However, an in-depth understanding and knowledge guidance in this field is still lacking. Therefore, it is essential to carry out a thorough review to identify current research objectives and potential future paths for research development. In this study, the Scopus database was used to extract articles published in the past 10 years (i.e., 2012–2021) to reveal the knowledge state and knowledge gaps of innovations in mega-infrastructure projects and to clearly and objectively analyse their knowledge structure and relationships. To achieve these goals, a mixed-review approach was adopted, which includes scientometric and systematic analysis. The scientometric approach identified the most influential papers, the co-occurrence network of authors, and keywords clusters. Moreover, the systematic analysis divided the articles according to the research dimensions (antecedent, content, and impact) of innovations in mega-infrastructure projects. The results show that innovation in mega-infrastructure projects has gained more attention over the past decade. In addition, the majority of studies on innovations in mega-infrastructure projects concentrate primarily on the nature of innovation itself, often ignoring the influencing factors of innovation and the impact of innovation. These findings provide practitioners and researchers with a clearer understanding of innovations in mega-infrastructure project and Inspire future research based on identified gaps.